


A worthy opponent

by marysutherland



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hate Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-07
Updated: 2011-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-27 01:09:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marysutherland/pseuds/marysutherland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sally and Sherlock have sex. 221B suffers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A worthy opponent

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a kink meme [prompt:](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/575.html?thread=96575#t96575) "Epic HATESEX between Sherlock and Donovan. Like slapping, blood, furniture breaking HATESEX". Though perhaps not quite as hate-filled as some people would like?  
> Warning for comic violence, hints of BDSM, mentions of drugs

To Sherlock Holmes she was always _the_ policewoman. In his eyes she eclipsed and predominated the whole of his sex life. Sergeant Sally Donovan, his partner in dubious and questionable memories.

It had started on 3rd October 2009; he remembered the date because it was the day Paul Blessington was murdered. The Met had screwed up as usual; after he'd got to the house in Brook Street, separated out the footprints of the three attackers from the residents, and then wanted to check how they'd faked Blessington's suicide, they wouldn't let him look at the body, until Joe Bell, the pathologist, had finished with it. Bell was apparently in training to supplant Anderson as most irritating possible person at a crime scene, and had promptly slowed his normally glacial examination of corpses even further. Sherlock had tried to storm off when he got bored, but Lestrade had brought him back and stuck him in a spare bedroom, and given Donovan instructions to keep him there till he was called for.

Donovan had leant against the wall and systematically given him verbal abuse for more than half an hour. And it was So. Damn. Boring. She had no talent for sustained needling - he could have insulted himself far more inventively - and he couldn't think properly with her voice in his head. He had to shut her up, he decided at last, but what could he use for a gag? Infuriatingly, he didn't have a scarf on today – his last surviving one had been lost when he'd been thrown into the Thames the previous evening. It was surprisingly hard to rip up sheets effectively, and even Donovan would get suspicious if he took his socks off. He daren't choke her, for fear he'd miscalculate and end up with corpse no. 2 in the house. And she might try and damage his gloves. Which only left one method of closing her mouth...

He'd been too quick for her: feinted for the door, then swerved and pushed her back against the wall, grabbed her arms, leaned down and pressed his mouth against hers. Don't try French kissing, she might bite... Donovan had somehow managed to wrench one arm free, and her nails raked down his ear and neck, but the pain just kept his adrenaline pumping, helped him think faster - why three men? Blessington had been fat, but old, and one of the attackers was clearly tall and very muscular. Donovan's hand was clawing at the back of his shirt now, pulling him towards her, not pushing him away. Oh, and her mouth was forcing _his_ open . There was an overwhelming taste of mint mouthwash - she was not a subtle woman. Interesting, though. And then he realised with a shock that the three men had all come along because they didn't trust one another – so that was why they'd been standing around before the attack, must have been arguing - which would fit with the criminal gang hypothesis. Releasing his grip, he whirled round in joy to go and tell Lestrade to check whether Blessington had a criminal record...

Under the circumstances, he reflected that evening, Donovan had probably been entirely justified in chasing after him as he left, and kicking him hard in the back of the knee.

***

Donovan's offhand 'This way, freak' at their next meeting made him presume that was the end, ships that collide in the night. But then, just before Christmas, he'd got back to his bedsit in Montague Street and found her waiting for him in the corridor outside.

"I need a word with you," she'd said.

"Come in, Sergeant Donovan," he'd said, wondering why Lestrade had sent her instead of coming himself. Then he'd stood carelessly in front of her, waiting to see what she would do when she spotted the rat he was currently mummifying. Too carelessly, because it had allowed her to get the handcuffs on him before he could react, and then she was shoving the door to his room closed, and pulling out a baton. Why the hell hadn't he spotted that?

It was quite easy to outmanoeuvre her, of course, even with the handcuffs on, because he had a longer reach and knew the room better. He soon managed to kick the baton away. Donovan didn't try to go after it, or escape, which meant she hadn't been hired to injure him. Instead, she started scooping up breakables and throwing them at him: relatively accurately, so it was unlikely she was on drugs. Then he'd deliberately tempted her into getting too close, which meant that he could reach his handcuffed arms round her neck and start to pull. And then she'd smiled at him - Donovan, who never smiled when he was around - and said: "Do you get off on this, freak? Coz I do."

***

After she'd left – to his annoyance, she'd uncuffed him herself, rather than let him practice removing them – he started clearing up the mess. Blood and semen stains on the carpet, not going to go down well with the landlord. Then he had to photograph the marks on his wrists at half-hourly intervals. And meanwhile work out what that encounter had meant – and if, now his curiosity had been satisfied, he wanted to have sex with Sally again.

***

The next time he'd seen her had been at Lauriston Gardens - and she'd spent the previous night with Anderson. He'd been surprised enough – not annoyed, just surprised – to point that out in public. Show her that she couldn't hope to hide things from her. And yet she hadn't retaliated – hadn't said anything to Lestrade or John about him, them. Oh, she'd warned John he was a psychopath, but that was nothing new. In between sorting out the serial suicides and the trickier problem of working out how to share a flat with someone, he'd considered Sally. He'd always before treated her personal life as something he could safely erase from his hard drive. String of failed relationships, mainly because the men who went for her legs could never cope with the fact that she was a police officer, took her job bloody seriously. And the ones who did understand that presumably didn't thrill her.

So why him? Or why him, and then Anderson? She hadn't been lusting after Sherlock all this time. Even if he'd somehow missed the signs, she wouldn't be sleeping with Anderson if she was at all interested in him. If she wanted to attract his attention she'd be with Lestrade, if she wanted to worry him she'd be seducing Mycroft. So what was it, then? Not the handcuffs – he'd seen her arrest enough people by now to know that didn't turn her on. But violence more generally, perhaps?

Sadism wasn't really his area, he decided, and it wasn't till he met DI Dimmock that he realised he'd been wrong in thinking it was Sally's. Because Dimmock had a body just made for beating, and was clearly carrying a huge torch for Sally. If a man was stupid enough to have a wall full of photos of police events with one common denominator in the personnel, he's have left some other clues that even a policewoman couldn't miss.

What did that leave, he thought, oddly bothered that she was so hard a puzzle to solve. Oh, of course, why had he not seen it? Sally was at heart an old-fashioned maverick cop, who'd have been happier forty years ago, when they didn't bother about rules and red tape. Though did they let women PCs beat up suspects before the Sex Discrimination Act? But she was too professional to behave that way nowadays, she had to restrict herself to a bit of low level sneering. Until every now and then the tension built up and she did something crazy. That explained Anderson, whose only possible appeal could be as forbidden fruit. And he probably fell into the same category as well, as soon as she'd recognised not just that he was a fellow rule-breaker, but that that extended to sexual behaviour as well. So what did he do now?

***

When he saw her next, at the start of the Five Pips case, he used a quiet moment to give her the bulky envelope he'd prepared. It held printouts of the pictures of his bruised wrists – timed and dated. And the zoomed in shot, where he'd circled the tiny, but distinctive scar he had on the base of his right hand. He'd also included a note: _originals deleted from my files_. It wasn't as impressive as the days when you could just give someone the negatives, but he thought she'd realise the sentiment was the same: he wasn't going to try and blackmail her. A couple of days later a parcel arrived at 221B, with the photos in it, and another note added: _Freak, remember I still know where you live_.

***

He'd expected something to happen soon after that, but again, she'd surprised him. It was weeks later before she turned up at the flat again. He hadn't properly understood till then that it was only sometimes that she needed the release of recklessness, destructiveness. She could keep on the straight and narrow for a while, and then...then she had to break out, and he was a handy partner in crime. Even a willing partner. It was instructive, even impressive, seeing her normal, rather dreary stroppiness turning into such inventive bloody-mindedness when they were alone together. So even when her attempts at kinky sex proved she had no real feel for fetishism, he didn't give into the temptation of sending her anonymous links to helpful websites. That would have been...insulting.

***

January was turning out to be a bad month for the Met: worries about staffing cuts, not meeting their targets, one or two many villains walking free. He could see the tension building in Lestrade, and in Sally. And she didn't have smoking to go back to. Instead, a text had come from her that morning:

 _One of these days they're going to find you standing over a cold dead body. Maybe tonight? Sally_

He'd texted back:

 _7.30 pm, my flat. Come armed. SH_

Home advantage was always worth having on these occasions, but he needed to prepare the combat zone. And make sure that John was out of the way. John liked plain vanilla sex with pleasant vanilla women. He didn't approve of fighting unless there was a war on. He'd wondered about explaining to John that though he was married to his work, Sally had a way of getting married men to cheat. But he couldn't, somehow, make that kind of cheap comment behind her back anymore. If he was going to insult her, it had to be face to face.

***

At 7.29 that evening, there was not so much a knock on the door of the flat as a crash, accompanied by a yell of "Open up, it's the police." And then another crash. My God, he thought, she's breaking the door down. It was so funny that he didn't stop to think till too late how much it would annoy Mrs Hudson. Good job she was out of the way for the evening as well. In a surprisingly short time, Sally had splintered the lock in the door frame, and burst through, the battering ram still in her hands.

"Next time, when the police come round, you should open up your door when you're told, Sh-Freak." She dropped the ram on the carpet, still panting slightly.

"Next time, when you're using the Enforcer," Sherlock retorted, "you should carry out a detailed risk assessment, and ensure you wear the correct safety equipment. And why are you in uniform anyhow? Have they kicked you out of CID, or are you now moonlighting as a kissogram?"

"I'm helping out Albany Street nick with their nightshift. The tossers in the canteen got a special offer on pork chops, and now half the shift's down with food poisoning."

"Sorry, Donovan, I don't detect meat crime."

"I'm not here for that. I thought it was maybe time for another drugs bust." Sally was advancing on Sherlock now. He let her get close; they both knew by now exactly how much stronger he was than her. She was about to grab his left arm, Sherlock thought, watching her gaze. Surely she didn't think she could twist his arm behind his back, did she? It was puzzling, so he was stupidly slow to react when she brought her left hand out of her pocket. He closed his eyes instinctively, expecting pepper spray, not the five claws that dug into his upper arm.

"Ow!" That's evidence, Donovan, stop tampering with it," he said, twisting the wicked little nailed club from her hand. "That's the tiger claw marker from the Ronder case last month, isn't it?"

"Look at the marks on your arm, freak," Sally replied. "Look a lot like injection marks, don't they?"

"They look _absolutely_ nothing like them."

"I don't think anyone will care when I get on the radio and tell them about the heroin I found here."

"Oh, you mean the stuff you planted on your last visit? That's gone, and there was a very happy addict down the road for a couple of nights. It was a bit clever putting it in John's room, wasn't it? He might have missed it, and if it's been found I've had to say it was mine, wouldn't I? But not clever enough, Sally, your schemes never are." He was starting to wind her up, but she was still comparatively calm. She'd brought more drugs, with her, he was almost certain of it, so where could they be?

He was just quick enough to get his hand in her vest pocket before her nails skidded down his wrist. She must sharpen them specially, because she surely couldn't keep them like this normally. She was starting to get angry now, as he held the wrap up above her head and fended her off, but not yet enough. They should get on with this, because it couldn't take even John more than an hour to get the information he wanted from Spider Gary. Oh, he knew how he could force the pace...

"OK, Donovan, maybe we should have a drugs bust after all," he said, and ripped the wrap open, letting the powder fall down on her, on both of them. "Shall I call the Met now, Sally, let them see what we're sharing?"

She was pulling off her stab vest hurriedly, brushing the powder off the rest of the uniform, but she looked up at that.

"If you want to, freak. Here's my radio." She held it out. "Give you a kick, would it, getting me thrown out of the force?"

"Not at all, Sally, you wouldn't be half so entertaining as a civilian." There was something odd about the powder, wasn't there? Not heroin after all, what was it? He reached out to finger a smear on her face, and as she blocked him, bent and swiped his tongue against her shirt.

"Sally Donovan," he yelled in delight, "you try and give me heroin needle marks and then you want to plant cocaine on me? I've met ten-year olds who are cleverer criminals than you."

"Did you just lick my shirt, you pervert? Is that what you're into now?" She was winding herself up, but they needed more. His leg shot out to trip her up, and by the time she'd scrambled up, he was across the room and plonking himself in John's armchair, his back to her.

"Just go, Sally. You're not going to make it as a master criminal. But before you do, we should have a drink. Kitchen's behind you, soft drink in a plastic cup for me, we don't want accidents, do we?"

She was heading for the kitchen, and he hoped he'd calculated right. Glasses, knives and bleach locked away, because although he enjoyed danger, he didn't want either of them getting permanently scarred. He was betting that she wouldn't throw things at him if his back was turned - she had an odd sense of fair play sometimes – and that between the mirror and the strategically placed lighting, he could spot her or her shadow before she got too close.

"You're a long time fixing those drinks, Sally," he called out, in his most insufferable manner. "If you can't follow the instructions on the label, you need to dilute the squash with water." She was coming back now - he suddenly caught a glimpse - and not with a pan, or a broom, as he'd expected, but one of the kitchen stools...

"Want something to drink, do you, freak? Well how about this?" She had no talent for repartee, but god, she was strong for her size, he thought, as she hoisted the metal stool, and started to bring it crashing down towards him.

"Domestic science not your strong point, obviously, Sally," he said, smiling, as he reached up to catch one of the stool's legs, jerking it forward, as he levered himself out of the chair with his other hand, pulling Sally off balance. Except he hadn't got it quite right, and the stool crashed into the fireplace with a horrendous metallic din. Still, at least Sally had ended up on the floor, as he planned. But he had to pin her down quickly now, before she had time for more mayhem. He grabbed the stool at the same time she did, twisted it out of her hand, and she was distracted enough that he could get his knees onto her thighs, secure her legs, and then grab her wrists. She wasn't going anywhere now. He looked down triumphantly at her now, her eyes shining now with an anger that wasn't just directed at him, but encompassed a kind of incandescent fury at the crappiness of the universe, and a city full of crime and pain, and all the white boys like him and Dimmock – how the hell was he an inspector and Sally not? – and the sheer bloody hell of behaving herself. If he'd ever felt like that, he'd have wanted to blow something up – bashing people around with a stool really seemed quite restrained.

She was starting to get her breath back now, after the shock of him jumping on her, and she opened her gorgeous lips to let some very ugly language out. He didn't enjoy that, but he knew by now she needed it. To keep her anger, her arousal up, because not even Sally could maintain that righteous fury naturally for long. And to cover up the fact that the next part of the sequence involved not just consent, but active cooperation between them.

Because he couldn't coerce Sally, confident and trained in self-defence, to do anything she really didn't want to without resorting to genuine GBH. Even now, holding her down, if she was desperate enough, she could bite or head butt him, and he certainly wouldn't fancy his chances of holding both her wrists with one hand, while he got his trousers down. He could tie her up, but that would leave marks, and he'd surely explained the signs to Lestrade often enough that he'd notice something. The whole thing was just play-fighting, but the swearing helped her forget that, helped her maintain the purity of her anger towards him. Even as she carefully didn't attempt to gouge his eyes out when he released her hands.

Instead, as he straddled her and rapidly wriggled his erection free of his pants, she contented herself with repeatedly slapping his face, and he could roll with that. She didn't have much leverage, of course, when she was lying down, so she'd probably soon get frustrated and start pulling his hair. He didn't enjoy that either, but he'd had a bright idea this time.

"What have you put on your hair, you fucking freak? You wearing Brylcreem now?" she demanded, as her fingers grabbed at his curls.

"Vaseline, Sally."

"That's disgusting!"

"Yes, but hard to get a grip on," he replied. He'd got _her_ trousers down round her ankles now, and as one of his hands was pulling down her briefs, he reached up with the other and ran his fingers through his hair. "And it's also handy for lubrication," he added, his fingers swiping inside her. She barely needed it though, he could feel, and he was fully hard by now - outwitting her was always good foreplay. Which meant they could get on with this. He pushed himself into Sally, and she started struggling beneath him in a way that conveniently made the angles just right for both of them. She was still swearing, of course, but he could tune most of that out.

"Can't you think...of something more original...Donovan?" he panted. Her hands were clawing at his back, but he had a good thick shirt on, so it wasn't having much effect. "The time you said...I had a thing for camels...that was really quite...uh...good!" He was near the edge now - one more thrust and he came, groaning, and for a moment nothing else mattered.

"God, you've got no stamina, have you, freak?" Sally lay there under him, laughing at him, which gave him time to withdraw. Then he quickly pushed his fingers back into her. This was the tricky part - he had to keep watching her, for his own safety. He could unlock safes by touch alone, but his fingers were so slippery, and his heart was still pounding. Sally was twisting her pelvis, but was it away from his fingers? No, it was towards them...into his expertly exploring touch...and she had stopped swearing now, which meant she was trying not to groan. And he had the right place now, he knew it, teasing her clit with delicate strokes...he could feel her body begin to twitch involuntarily at his touch, hear the tension in her breathing as she fought not to cry out, not to beg for more. But he gave her more anyhow, flooding her with sensation. When at last he stopped, he saw her face relaxing into an exhausted bliss. If it was anyone other than Sally, he'd have told her then how gorgeous she was.

But this was Sally Donovan, and there was a touch of the black widow spider in her. After sex was dangerous – she'd bitten him once, when he'd made the mistake of kissing her. She felt compelled to prove she was still in charge, overcompensating with violence for having revealed the pleasure he gave her. But not this time, which was strange. Instead, she was just ignoring him. standing up, dragging her uniform back on, moving to pick up her stab vest, with not even a perfunctory insult. She looked at her watch, and only then did he realise – God, his mind was still so slow – and he demanded:

"What time's your shift, Donovan?"

"Starts in ten minutes, freak, so I haven't time to listen to you."

There were times when Sally was even crazier than he was. And then he remembered, and rushed towards her.

"Sally, don't take your stab vest, it's still got coke all over it!" Fortunately, the genuine concern in his voice meant she didn't try and attack him as he rapidly stripped it off her. "And for God's sake, Sergeant Donovan, stay away from the sniffer dogs for this shift."

"Want to keep my stab vest as a trophy do you, freak? That turn you on?"

"Of course, Sally. And don't forget your battering ram. I don't like seeing people being careless with police property."

"See you round, Sherlock," she said, and she was gone, slamming the door with the busted lock behind her. He was going to have to think up an explanation for John about that one.

***

John didn't turn up till 9.15 pm, and someone – Spider Gary? – had been kicking him in the ribs. Sherlock hoped John wouldn't deduce anything from his own slightly too careful movements, so he hastily launched into an explanation of his 'experiment' on the door.

"Alibi for the Lockhart case. I wanted to check how long it would have taken Lockhart to break down the door. The kitchen stool was the nearest thing I could find to the chair he'd have been using. He's lying about the timing, that's clear."

"I don't remember a door getting broken down in the Lockhart case..." John began, tiredly, and then at last noticed what Sherlock was wearing.

"Why on earth have you got a stab vest on? It's not even the right size. Whose is it?"

"Donovan's. When I went down to talk to Lestrade, she was annoying me, so I broke into her locker and took it. You'd better take it back in the morning. Oh, and the tiger claw scratcher as well."

"Sherlock, that's evidence."

"The case was never going to come to court. And I wanted to check what the marks would look like if they were self-inflicted." He rolled up his sleeve to show the puncture marks. Thankfully, there was almost no chance that John would spot the angle was all wrong for him to have made them himself.

"Why do _I_ have to take the stuff back?" John asked. "Oh, I know, because Donovan will kill you when she finds out about the stab vest."

"Tell her to get it cleaned."

"She certainly will if you've been wearing it. In fact she'd probably really prefer to burn it."

Sherlock took off the vest and handed it to John. He thought most of the cocaine was off by now, but if the worst came to the worst, Sally could at least claim cross-contamination. He hoped she'd been back to her professional self by the time she'd got to the station, not still the crazy chancer who'd walked through London carrying a stash she'd nicked from the Drugs Squad. Maybe their encounter had burned that out of her, at least for a while.

"Is there any other police property I ought to be returning?" John asked wearily.

"No, but if any of your female friends would like to pose as police officers, now's their chance," he said, handing John the warrant card he'd pick-pocketed from Sally when taking off her stab vest. Well, he deserved some recompense for helping her out.

"What do you mean?" said John. "This is Lestrade's ID. Sherlock, why are you laughing?"

He could never really care for a woman, it was not in his nature, but there were times when Sherlock almost loved Sally Donovan.


End file.
